by Martina Cole
Boris was impressed. This man, an old man by his standards, had put up a very brave fight. It had taken three men and eventually a gun to get him in the back of the van, and as they had driven him away he had really gone to town, knocking out one of Boris’s best men with a single punch.
Now he had been kept prisoner for two days without food or water and he was still fighting. Boris envied Patrick Kelly this man’s loyalty and devotion. But he would keep him without food, water or warmth for a good while yet. He didn’t trust the prisoner’s strength. It was abnormal.
‘Mr Kelly knows we have you. I have heard from him and will be making a point of seeing him before very long. You need be patient for only a few more days.’
‘Up yours, you Russian ponce!’
‘The same to you too, Mr Gabney, I’m sure. I will bid you farewell.’
He left as quietly as he’d entered. Willy wondered where the hell he was being held. There was no sound, no smell, nothing. It was a completely dark and sterile environment. He felt better for the human contact, though. At one point he’d wondered if he was going to be left to starve to death. Maybe that’s what they would do to him yet. He didn’t know. He only knew the Russians were hard bastards. But then so was he, and more importantly so was Patrick Kelly. Pat would get him out of it if it was humanly possible, no matter what the price. Willy knew that as well as he knew his own name.
All he could do was wait and hope that things would turn out all right. He knew his boss would be moving heaven and earth to locate him. He only hoped Pat had talked to Maureen. She would have Willy’s nuts and nail them to the wall over this little débâcle.
Kate listened to Superintendent Cotter and stifled an urge to tell him where to get off. Politely, of course. The man had an arrogance that was almost palpable.
She listened as he droned on, obviously enamoured of the sound of his own voice. She observed him carefully, taking in every detail, from his sandy thinning hair to the beer gut hanging over his belt. She realised he wore a truss and this made her want to laugh out loud.
Cotter guessed what she was thinking and his shrewd blue eyes glared at her.
‘I understand, Miss Burrows, and please correct me if I am wrong, that you have had an intimate relationship with the murder suspect for a couple of years.’
‘I most certainly have. Mr Kelly and I had a full physical relationship until recently, when we both decided that our friendship had run its course - after which we parted company.’ She shrugged. ‘You understand how these things are, I’m sure.’
‘Mr Kelly is wanted in relation to a recent killing in Soho . . .’
Kate interrupted him. ‘I know. But Mr Kelly has never been found guilty of so much as a parking ticket or even given points on his licence before now, so I really don’t see what all this has to do with me. You seem to be insinuating that I have somehow compromised myself but I have been in touch with my union and they assure me that unless Mr Kelly had any prior conviction, I was perfectly free to see him.
‘I want you to understand, Superintendent Cotter, that I have always kept one eye on the job, whoever I was dating. Which is more than can be said for some of my male colleagues who seem to make a career out of escorting prisoners’ wives around town, sometimes even marrying them. Now, if you’re finished with me, I have a rather demanding case to investigate as I’m sure you are aware.’
‘Were you with Mr Kelly last Tuesday night? Yes or no. As you are in such a hurry I will get straight to the point.’
Kate looked Cotter in the eye for a good fifteen seconds and he could see her battling it out with herself before she answered. She knew he wouldn’t believe her. She could hardly believe she was saying it herself.
‘Yes, I was. It was our last night together, so I could hardly forget. I can categorically state that Pat Kelly was nowhere near that club. He was a silent partner and had no involvement in the day-to-day running of it at all.’
She stood up and smiled. ‘If you get this tape typed up, I’ll sign my statement and we can all get on with our work.’
Cotter smirked. ‘Not so fast, Miss Burrows. A Mr Thomas Broughton says that Patrick Kelly was at the club that night. How do you explain that?’
Kate paused for a moment before drawing breath. ‘I can’t. He’s obviously mistaken. Now is that all?’ Her voice carried far more conviction than she really felt.
‘For the time being, Miss Burrows.’
She went straight to the canteen, saw Jenny alone at a table and grabbed a coffee before joining her.
‘How did it go?’
‘Not too good in all honesty. I think Cotter’s after blood, preferably mine!’
Jenny laughed delightedly. ‘He’s a right arsehole, I’ve had dealings with him myself. You’ve heard I’m a lesbian? He tried to say I was as perverted as the people I put away. He’s the one with the problem, not me. I’m happy. I like myself and my life and what I am. Not many straights can say that, eh?’
Kate admired her honesty. In a profession dogged by homophobia and racism it was hard to be yourself at times even when you were a white heterosexual. Admitting to being gay was tantamount to wearing a sign reading ‘Kick Me’.
But it was getting better. Or at least Kate hoped it was. On the surface everyone was very politically correct but no one, not even the government, could dictate what people were thinking deep inside.
‘Well, Cotter doesn’t like me and quite frankly I don’t like him. But I could do without all this at the moment, I really could,’ she sighed.
‘I’ve heard about Patrick Kelly.’ Jenny laughed. ‘A good-looking villain, by all accounts. Seriously good-looking if the gossip’s true.’
Kate grinned. ‘Who’s been talking - Golding? He’s worse than a woman, him. He’d find gossip at the Last Supper.’
‘You’ve a good rep, Kate,’ Jenny said warmly. ‘You’re respected by all the men here because you caught and tamed a lion. Never underestimate the power of gossip. It can do you a lot of good.’
Kate saw the logic in what she was saying. ‘Thanks, Jenny. I needed a friendly word.’
‘We all do at times. It’s human nature, love. Now drink up and let’s get back into the fray. We have to talk to Miss Parkes and see what we can get out of her, OK?’
Kate nodded but the lie she had told weighed her down. She’d done it not so much for Patrick but to give Cotter one in the eye. Was it going to backfire on her?
Patrick would have to be told she had alibied him. She wasn’t sure if she was pleased at the prospect of talking to him or not. Told herself she needed time and space. She needed to sort her head out at some point and decide what she was going to do with her life, or what was left of it anyway. The last week had been full of emotional ups and downs.
Her nerves were shot and she was tried to the very core of her being. And on top of everything else she still had not phoned her mother.
Lenny Parkes walked into the Fox Revived and stared around him until he located the man he wanted.
Kevin Blankley was sitting with his cronies, Harold Carter, Les Smith and Davey Carling. They waved Lenny over and he mimed getting a drink and walked to the bar where he ordered a large brandy. Draining it down in one gulp, he ordered another immediately. He did this three more times until the landlady, Denise Charterhouse, a large woman with yellow teeth and a jocular manner, said:
‘Who’s rattled your bleeding cage then? Had a row with the old woman?’
He didn’t answer her and she said brightly, trying to get him talking, ‘Where’s little Mary today? All the men have missed her.’
He knew on one level that she meant nothing by it. That she was just being friendly. As his wife had pointed out, he was always in the pub with Mary. She had been coming in here since she was a baby. But after all that had happened the words hit him full force and his last ounce of self-control disappeared.
Turning from the bar, he picked up a pint glass half-full of flat lager. The look on his face told
Denise that something bad was going to happen. She watched in horror as he walked across the crowded room towards his friends. Before she could shout a warning, the glass was raised, smashed against a table and thrust with animal strength into Kevin Blankley’s neck. The whole pub watched mesmerised as Lenny stabbed the jagged glass into the man over and over again.
Harold, Les and Davey jumped from their seats, Kevin’s blood spraying all over them in a fine mist.
Kevin was on the floor now, his hands to his lacerated face and neck. Blood was pumping freely like a hose-pipe on a sunny day.
Lenny began kicking him, and then the shouting started. It came from his bowels, as he screamed his hatred at the man on the floor.
‘Fucking touch my baby, you bastard! Touch my girl, would you? Make her like you, you fucking beast!’
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Davey go even paler, try to move away, get to the door. He saw the others looking at him in amazement and instinctively knew that Davey had been in on it as well.
Lenny turned on him like an animal. ‘What you running for, Davey? Where you going - home? Got any nice pictures of my girl? That piece of shit I called a daughter? Who you lot took and dragged down to the gutter where you come from.’
He was walking towards Davey who looked terrified. Lenny glanced around the pub and said loudly, ‘He’s a nonce. A beast. I’ve seen the photos. And not just eleven year olds, oh, no. You’re always saying how much you love kids, eh, Davey? Well, I’ve seen the proof with me own eyes. Old Bill are coming for you lot, but not before I get to pay you back for what you’ve done to my girl. Pay her, did you? Cheap at the fucking price, eh?’
Davey was a large man, heavy-set with a heavy job. He was muscular through and through. Challenged, he stood his ground and said nastily, ‘Your Mary didn’t need any teaching from me, Len. She’s a natural. Look how she walks about, asking for trouble and getting it, mate.’
Lenny listened in amazement to his old mate and close friend. How could he not have known? How could be never have guessed what was going on? Davey wasn’t that clever, surely.
He heard the distant wail of sirens and guessed, rightly, it was the police coming for him. Taking a carving knife from his belt, he held it before him and smiled. Davey tried to run. Lenny got to him as he reached the door. His hand was extended towards the heavy iron handle when the knife hit him in the back, tearing his skin but not doing as much damage as Lenny wanted.
The two plainclothes policemen Kate had sent to watch Lenny grabbed him as they saw their chance, while his back was turned and he was not expecting it. By the time the back-up arrived he was on the floor, handcuffed and subdued. One man dead, and another needing urgent hospital treatment. Lenny felt he’d done a good day’s work.
It was over for him. He had done what he had to do and could finally relax. His wife and son would be moved away by Social Services and relocated in another town. That was the price he would exact for a full and frank confession. He knew the police would agree. He also knew that soon everyone would learn what his daughter had done; talk spread fast in a small place like Grantley. But he would be remembered as a man who had sorted things out. Done his duty. Removed the scum from the streets.
In short, he would be a hero.
It was shallow consolation, though. In truth nothing would ever make up for what his daughter had done. She had laughed at him, scorned all he had tried to be to her. The strangest thing of all was, already he felt nothing for her. Not even anger, hatred or disgust. It was as if Mary had never existed for him.
He knew as they marched him outside the pub that he was a dead man, inside, where it counted. If his body lived on until he was a hundred years old he would always know that for him death had arrived when he was thirty-eight. From this moment on, he would merely go through the motions. He would eat, breathe and shit, but he would never feel any real emotions again. Mary, once his pride and joy, his little daughter, had seen to that.
Kate looked into his eyes at the police station and he smiled back at her. Covered in blood and wild-eyed, he felt as if Kate Burrows and the heavy-set woman with her understood his actions. Understood what had made him do what he had done. They gave him tea, cigarettes and respect.
At least that’s how it seemed to Lenny Parkes.
In her office Kate looked at Jenny with guilt and regret.
‘I knew this could happen, but how could I have prevented it?’
Jenny shrugged and said breezily, as if she didn’t give a damn, ‘He took it to the extreme, I don’t deny that. But he’s led us to another paedophile we can interview, maybe find out more about how many are involved in all this and, more importantly, who they are. Paedophiles are passive, Kate. They’re normally timid little men and women, terrified that someone will find out about them.
‘They know what the normal members of society think of them, the disgust they engender. They know that a capture will bring down disgust, hatred, even death on them. That’s why we have the VPU units. Vulnerable Prisoners. Pity they don’t think about their vulnerable prey. I don’t feel anything about the pub death, really, except that it was pretty horrific. But that doesn’t make me any the less glad that another nonce has been removed from the face of the earth.
‘I have seen the bodies of children that people like this have taken and tortured and killed. I lost any sympathy for them a long time ago. In fact, if I could get away with it, I’d nut them myself.’
She winked at Kate before saying, ‘All that was strictly off the record, of course.’
Davey Carling looked ill. His breathing was laboured and his chest rattled. Golding was standing by the bed with a young police constable, and even he realised that the man was dying.
The doctor looked at David Golding and motioned him towards the door. Outside in the noisy corridor he explained what was happening.
‘Mr Carling had a massive heart attack earlier this afternoon. He is in a deep coma and the chances of recovery are slight. The stab wound seemed to become infected overnight. It appears he was already suffering from chronic heart disease, which is not surprising. I already ascertained he was a heavy smoker and drinker, and from the condition of his outer body I knew he was out of shape.’ He shrugged. ‘If he hadn’t been stabbed he would have died within a few months anyway. Keeled over, dropped dead. Probably while eating a large cooked breakfast.’
Golding was amazed at the young man’s lack of compassion. The doctor realised what he was thinking and explained, ‘The way I see it, the greatest gift we have is the gift of life. When I see it wasted, it always makes me angry.’
‘There’s no chance of interviewing him?’ asked Golding.
The doctor shook his head wearily.
‘No. No chance. It’s TLC from here on. He’ll never utter another word.’
Golding walked away.
Davey Carling died with the young police constable as his only visitor. The PC was still stumped by the Sun crossword and didn’t even realise he was gone until a nurse came in and quietly turned off the monitors.
Kate took the news calmly, one half of her glad that another paedophile had bitten the dust.
This was a death that no one was going to mourn. Least of all her.
Chapter Nine
‘Hello, Kate.’
Patrick’s voice was rich and warm, washing over her like a wave. As she sat beside him in his car she felt the old powerful attraction to him. Could smell his own particular smell that once had made her feel safe and secure. She had to force down a strong urge to put her arms around him for comfort.
‘You did it then?’
She nodded imperceptibly. ‘I lied if that’s what you’re referring to.’ In the close confines of the car he seemed larger than ever. Bigger than she remembered him.
‘Were you at the club that night? Tommy Broughton says you were.’
‘Tommy’s a liar then. I was nowhere near it, OK?’
She could hear the fear underlying his words and realise
d that Patrick Kelly was putting on a show of bravado for the first time since she had laid eyes on him.
‘What’s going on, Pat?’
From the tone of her voice, he knew that if he could tell her the truth then maybe she would stand beside him after all. But he couldn’t. She was away from him now and that was a good thing at this time. She must never know the danger he had already placed her in with Boris for just the simple reason that she was known to be close to him.
In all his life Patrick had never been in the position he currently faced. He had ducked and dived for years and it was finally all coming home to roost. He was out of the shit with Old Bill, though that could be strictly temporary. What he needed now was to keep himself and Kate safe.
‘I appreciate what you did, darling. I know how much it took for you to lie like that.’
‘Where were you, Pat? That night - who were you with?’
He looked into her eyes and sighed heavily. He trusted this woman more than he had ever trusted anyone before. Even Renée, his wife, had never engendered the feelings Kate Burrows stirred in him. But he could not tell her. Kate would want to sort it out, help him. Make him try the honest approach. She had never understood that with some people, the honest approach was fatal.
He admired her, though. To see what she had seen in the course of her work and still trust in human nature was to his eyes a wondrous feat. He barely trusted anyone, just a couple of very close friends, Kate being one of them and Willy the other.
As if he had put the words into her mouth she said, ‘Where’s Willy?’
He looked into her face and knew she half guessed what had occurred. ‘He’s doing an errand for me.’
Kate didn’t answer, just stared into his eyes. Lying eyes, if she knew Pat Kelly.